HEALTH Secretary Matt Hancock has described nursing as "a highly skilled profession" but refused to guarantee a pay rise for the industry after the coronavirus crisis.

He was responding to a question from a member of the public at the daily Downing Street briefing. 

Despite saying nurses "deserve decent pay", he refused to outline plans this will take place.

He said: “We put up nurses’ pay last month and in fact last year we had the biggest rise in pay, especially for nurses when they were starting their career, the lowest paid nurses got a pay rise, very significant, of over 15%.

“There has been a significant pay rise for nurses and I think one of the things that the crisis has shown is just how much the nation values our staff across the health and care system, including nurses.

“And when it comes to how we reward people for their efforts in this crisis what I can tell you is that as the Health Secretary I will be making sure that we fight to have that fair reward.”